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Disrespect at work is more common than most people realize — and more costly than most organizations want to admit. Research from HR Acuity found that more than half of employees have witnessed or experienced bullying, harassment, or discrimination at work. McKinsey's decade-long research shows that organizations that actively cultivate respect and diversity consistently outperform those that do not. This course gives you the practical skills to change that dynamic — in yourself, in your team, and in your organization. Dr. Don Gilman draws on more than 30 years of organizational consulting and leadership development to guide you through six core capability areas: defining and recognizing disrespectful behavior; identifying and interrupting unconscious bias; navigating workplace power dynamics; managing strong emotions under pressure; intervening as an empowered bystander; and building the daily habits that make genuine respect and diversity sustainable. Each module combines video instruction with AI-powered practice activities so you do not just read about these skills — you practice them in realistic workplace scenarios. By the end of this course, you will have the vocabulary, the frameworks, and the specific tools to make your workplace more respectful, more inclusive, and more effective.

Syllabus

The Power of Respect

Disrespect at work is more common and more costly than most people realize, and much of it goes unaddressed because people can't agree on what it even looks like. In this module, you'll sharpen your ability to define respect and its opposite, recognize legally significant categories of discrimination, bullying, and harassment, and practice identifying these behaviors in realistic workplace scenarios so you can name them and take action.

Unconscious Bias

Your brain shortcuts information constantly, and some of those shortcuts quietly shape decisions about who gets hired, promoted, and heard. In this module, you'll examine how unconscious bias forms and operates in your own mind, trace its effects across real workplace decisions, and apply two concrete techniques (accommodation and mitigation) to interrupt biased thinking before it affects how you treat the people around you.

Workplace Dynamics

Power shapes every interaction at work, including who speaks, who gets heard, and who gets overlooked, but the forces driving that dynamic are rarely as visible as the org chart suggests. In this module, you'll examine how positional and personal power operate differently, identify the motivations behind the behaviors you see in your team, and apply five concrete strategies for building the kind of healthy, respectful dynamics that let everyone contribute at their best.

Managing Emotions

Strong emotions are a normal part of workplace life, but unmanaged they can set back months of progress in a single meeting. In this module, you'll develop the skills to identify the warning signs of your own strong emotions before they surface in harmful ways, recognize the five most disruptive emotions that appear in workplace settings, and apply four practical techniques for helping yourself and others respond to difficult feelings in ways that protect both relationships and results.

Empowering the Bystander

Most workplace disrespect has witnesses. What it often lacks is someone willing to act, and in this module, you'll examine what stops bystanders from intervening, learn the four conditions that signal it's time to step in, choose between four practical intervention techniques, and build a verbal repertoire of specific, tested phrases for use with both the person who behaved badly and the person who was affected, so you can make a real difference in the moment.

Fostering Respect

Knowing what respect looks like is not the same as consistently showing it. In this module, you'll move from understanding to habit by applying eight daily actions that build a respectful workplace from the inside out and working through a four-step framework for creating and sustaining the kind of diverse environment where those actions mean the most. This is where the course becomes personal: not what you know, but what you do.